Sky Father and Earth Mother

Evidence in support of the conclusion that Izanagi originated
in early experience with phenomena of the sky, namely, that
he is a true sky father, is not confined to that which has just
been studied. In 1910 Dr. Inouye Tetsujiro, the father of the
scientific study of religion on the part of modern Japanese scholars, published in the Tetsuga\u Zasshi ("Philosophical Journal ") an essay on Japanese mythology in which he announced
that he had finally come to the conclusion that Izanagi should be
taken as a personification of the sky, and Izanami, his wife, as
a personification of the earth.1